


The Worse Things Get

by propinquitous



Series: Map of the Falling Sky [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, M/M, Mark of Cain, mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:46:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every dial tone, every truck stop, every heartbreak, I love you more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Worse Things Get

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place a few weeks after King of The Damned, but without any reference to the last two episodes of the season.
> 
> Almost completely the result of listening to Neko Case's [Calling Cards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91jgjTAmNQU&feature=kp) on repeat.

The light is dim over his head, blue and white and a little sickly.  The chrome of the pay phone in front of him reflects it onto his face, shimmering.  He paces in front of it a little, take two steps, turns, takes three.  He shoves his hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders.  He feels lint in his pocket.  It’s soft and catches on the rough edges of his bitten nails and he has to scratch at the material to dislodge it.  Now he’s facing the pay phone, but staring at the ground, wondering about the last time someone actually used it.  He thinks about how his dad used to send him into Circle K to buy calling cards, how he never gave him cash, just change, how embarrassed he felt counting out dimes and nickels to pay the cost of the ten dollar credit.  He always rolled his eyes and grinned a little conspiratorially at the cashier, even when he was too young to define it.  “My dad had to rob the couch cushions for this”, “I earned every cent”.  Once, he found himself with extra change and bought himself a Snickers (“My mom’s PMSing and couldn’t find her wallet”).

But now it’s just him.  It’s after midnight.  Sam had passed out early, exhausted from the last two days of the hunt, a rugaru outside of Oklahoma City.  He had wanted to sleep.  Really.  Exhaustion crept in as he woke up this morning, and he had been actively imagining the comfort of freshly laundered sheets and an unusually silent mattress all day.  But the Mark won’t let him, seething and burning. He had tried stripping his flannel, then his t-shirt, but still found himself with an ache to scratch at his arm until it bled, to smash the door against his head, to draw Sam’s old-fashioned straight blade across his ribs.  But it’s a Sunday and he’s out of whiskey, so he left.  And now he’s standing in front of a disused pay phone that hasn’t been touched by anyone in at least ten years unless it was to call 911.

He finally pulls his hands out of his pockets and hopes it doesn’t cost more than a dollar or two for long distance.  The coins rattle and click as Dean presses them into the slot with his thumb, wondering why the _fuck_ he didn’t grab his cell on the way out, he knows better, what if he got mugged, what if there are vamps in the area, what if he didn’t have the goddamn fifty cents for this stupid, anachronistic piece of shit?

While the other end rings he wonders where 617 is and how the hell he’d managed to memorize the ten digits.

“Hello?” Cas’ voice is suspicious, awake.

“Hey,” he breathes.  A little bit of tension drains from the arm that holds the phone.

“Hello, Dean,” the suspicion turns to warmth, worry, “Where are you calling from?”  


“Uh, a pay phone.  Oklahoma.  I forgot my cell.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.  Just couldn’t sleep.”  
  
Dean can practically hear the doubtful squint and he looks down at his shoes, feels a small, hot bubble of rage burst in his chest.  His grip on the phone tightens.

“Okay.  Do you need anything?”  And Dean pauses for a moment at that, thinks that he could use a stiff drink and maybe the close comfort of a warm body.  Instead he says, “No, just wanted to talk” and anyway, that was only a handful of times.

“All right.  I had a delicious tuna sandwich today.  It had jalapeños.”  Dean can’t help it.  He laughs, feels his mouth widen and the feeling is so foreign, so downright alien, that the muscles of his face actually cramp for a moment, like smiling in the cold.

“Oh yeah?  I thought angels didn’t need to eat.”  The pause that follows is heavy.  It’s always so easy to imagine his expression and Dean hates it.

“I’m…not really an angel at this point.  Not exactly.  The grace I stole is, well.  It’s fading.”

The urge to head butt the phone surges through his spine and threatens to manifest.  Instead he bites his lip until it bleeds.

“I’m sorry,” he says and wonders if Cas can picture him just as easily.  He hopes not.

“I knew the risks.  Don’t worry about me, please.”  Cas’ voice carries such earnestness that Dean can’t think of anything to else to say.

“Well, I should head back,” he finally says.  He’s frustrated by his inability to make conversation, by the acrid burn of worry and anger beneath his sternum.  “Pay phones are a scam and I don’t have any more change.”

“Okay.  Please take care of yourself,”  
  
Dean hangs up before he registers that Cas couldn’t see him nod.  He stumbles out of the small booth and can’t hold back anymore, not the blind rage, not the longing, not the guilt.  He falls to the ground and retches, except he hasn’t eaten in half a day and nothing comes up but bile.  He slams his fists on the ground again and again until the small rocks cut his hands, digging dirt into the wounds and begging for infection.  He wants to scream but can’t because he has nothing to say except that he wants to kill, to die but he _can’t_ , not until this is done, but what _this_ is he doesn’t know because Abaddon is dead and that was the whole point, the whole fucking point but he can’t let go, he can’t, not now that he finally has an anchor, a thing he can point to and say, “I deserve this”.

He’s still shaking when he stands and starts the mile walk back to the motel.  Sam barely stirs when he gets in, locks the door, and crawls into bed, boots and all.  Out of habit, he triple checks the alarm on his phone.  There’s a text, sent half an hour ago and it makes him inhale sharp and angry through his nose.

 

_We can fix this._


End file.
